Guelph’s Jewish community adds another spiritual leader

RABBI

Vik Kirsch/Mercury staff

New Guelph Rabbi Yehoshua Chanowitz, serving University of Guelph Jewish students, stands in front of a Hanukkah menorah candelabrum, with wife Nechama Chanowitz and the couple's two boys: Mendel, 1 and three-month-old Yudi.

GUELPH — You could almost call it an embarrassment of riches: Guelph now boasts three Jewish spiritual leaders with the recent arrival of Rabbi Yehoshua Chanowitz and his family.

The affable Orthodox Jew, serving the Jewish student community at the University of Guelph through the Chabad Lubavitch organization, joins Rabbi Daniel Levitt, who also serves the campus with another Jewish organization, Hillel Guelph. Also in Guelph, serving the larger Jewish community across the city, is Rabbi Avraham Fisher at the 60-family Beth Isaiah synagogue on Surrey Street downtown, where he was formerly the cantor, a leading official.

“It was so needed,” Chanowitz said Sunday of the growing leadership, noting on the university campus of 22,000 students there are an estimated 1,000 Jewish students working toward their various science and arts degrees.

That’s from only several Jewish students at the university at one time in the distant past.

He noted Levitt is focused primarily on social programming, while he sees his role more “to communicate the (religious) tradition in a modern world,” though he, too, intends to play a social role in part.

Their roles sometimes overlap, like the joint Hanukkah celebration for students 4 p.m. Monday at Raithby House beside the central canon on campus.

Chanowitz, who’s also a member of the campus multi-faith organization, was speaking Sunday on the second day of the eight-day celebration of hope known as Hanukkah. Central to this is a nine-candle menorah, or candelabrum, the central candle used to light the other eight, one day at a time.

He said Hanukkah, also known as the Festival of Lights, dates back more than 2,000 years to a rededication of the Jewish Temple in the Holy Land and release of subjugated people.

“The message is not just for Jews,” Chanowitz said. “The oppressed were freed and good prevailed over darkness.”

“There is a message of hope,” he continued, adding every good deed “has a strong effect all over the world.” By way of comparison, when candles are lit “darkness leaves.”

While not wanting to get political, he noted Israel has survived despite more than half a century of threats to its existence in the Middle East. “It’s definitely a modern day miracle.”

Chanowitz, 27, was raised in upstate New York, while his wife is originally from Toronto. He served in Brooklyn, New York City, before the family came to Guelph recently for Chabad Lubavitch, which operates in 4,000 locations around the world.

Chabad Lubavitch, he said, is more than 250 years old and originated in Russia. It’s headquartered in New York and focuses on the unity, hospitality and warm embrace of the faithful. It’s part of Orthodox Judaism, to which Chanowitz is associated with a branch as a Hasidic Jew. He described Hasidic Judaism as “using the intellect to connect to God” in a traditional, conservative way.

“I’m mainly here for the students,” Chanowitz said. “The idea is to make our home their home away from home,” said Chanowitz. He lives with his family in a house on College Avenue, to which they invite Jewish students for weekly dinners. For a Hanukkah observance Saturday, they hosted 15 students.

He added he’ll also assist the larger community when needed, such as classes in the faith, observing highlights of the Jewish calendar like Hanukkah and fulfilling other needs as they arise.